Dick Cheney may have helped create the phenomenon of candidate Donald Trump.

Did Dick Cheney indirectly pave the way for Donald Trump? It’s not as absurd as it sounds. And no, I’m not talking about backlash from the Iraq war, although that’s part of the story.

Presidential elections can serve as reactions to the last president. We saw that when the American public replaced a swaggering Texan named George W. Bush with a bookish urbanite named Barack Obama. But this observation deserves an asterisk. Donald Trump’s rise does not suggest the Republican base is in the mood to swap out a hubris-laden President Obama for a humble, limited government, rule of law fetishist.

The marble bust of former Vice President Dick Cheney was unveiled Thursday at the Capitol. And though there were no cracks in his marble likeness, there were plenty of wisecracks from the presenters.

Top Republican leaders from the House and Senate, along with former president George W. Bush and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., honored Cheney in the Capitol Visitor Center ceremony. Cheney's bust joins other vice presidents' busts that are placed throughout Senate's second and third floor to commemorate their role as presidents of the Senate.